"Portnoy's Complaint" Quotes

She didn't insist that I take responsibility for anything, because I was a child, and because responsibility was not useful to me yet; my parents did everything for me — for my brother, too, until the day he died — and all I had to do was breathe and swallow, sleep and grow, plead for toys and chocolate, which appeared like clockwork on appropriate occasions.

In the twenty minutes it took the eggs to hard-boil, my mother washed every pot, pan, fork, knife, spoon, and drinking glass in the kitchen.

One day, I decided not to stay. I wasn't going anywhere, mind you. I just wouldn't stay.

Let's face it. I'm a magic man, Fred. I feel like a magician and I can do anything I want.

I am only amusing myself with those intellectual shall we say masturbations.

I’m the first one of us to admit being a sick cunt.

But in spite of being morons, most librarians are married, sad to say.

I don't know what to do with myself. I have no character.

How do you make them respect you? By making them cry! Helloo-hey! By having the balls to kick the livin’ shit out of them, that's how!

Do you see? No drum roll, no rapturous cry, no special ode, no eloquent film. Just little, no-account, callow I, who has made such a small stink in the history of flatulence.